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“Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
241–250 of 312 posts
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
My worry about this approach is: there is a reasonably popular saying that writing code is hard but debugging it is twice as hard (at least), which I think is an accurate description. LLMs will greatly increase code production, will they also increase debuggability to match?
LLMs don't just make it easy to accumulate code - they make it easy to throw code away and start again . This already enables taking a different approach to debuggability - if there's a bug and it can't be trivially solved, trash that bit of the code and write it again . It may not be broadly viable just yet, but it will be if the models keep getting cheaper and better. This is also implied in the idea of "vibe codin…
Ever heard of chesterton's fence?
If you don't understand what the code is doing, removing it sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does "I'm not technical" actually mean? It sounds like a euphemism for: I don't want to work hard. I don't care about the details. I don't want to learn new things. I want somebody else to do my homework. I don't want to put in the effort it takes to succeed. I cheated my way through school instead of learning from classes. I've always had everything handed to me on a silver platter, and I expect that to continu…
Or I’m in a different industry and it’s ridiculous to require years of schooling for a skill that’s not my primary interest? Or maybe the numbers looked jumbled and they really didn’t enjoy STEM classes? You sound arrogant. Have you ever paid for artwork? You may not have said “I’m not artistic,” but the same criticisms apply in reverse.
Doing something that's not your primary interest is one thing.
Not wanting to learn new things or understand how things work or put in any effort to succeed because you think you can just cheat your way through life is a totally different thing.
And that's what the difference between using AI programming tools responsibly and "vibe coding" is.
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#244Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#245I hate how what is effectively a stupid meme phrase became an actual term in a few days. > "Vibe Coding" might get you 80% the way to a functioning concept. But to produce something reliable, secure, and worth spending money on, you’ll need experienced humans to do the hard work not possible with today’s models. The problem is that 80% of the job is a proof of concept at best. 80% is effectively a QA walking into a b…
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Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
BTW, Copilot is not the best at coding. With the quality LLM return exponentially grows. Bigger chunks, fewer bugs, less time checking. From my experience LLMs do not impress on complex algorithms and shine on small utilities. They can use libs I even don't want to learn about.
I haven't really noticed that myself. I go "LLM shopping" fairly frequently trying to find which one of the few I'm paying for gives the best result for the current problem. They all seem to have their shortfalls, although I will say Claude is better for Greenfield work.
Well, probably you can try to go down to simpler models to get the idea. (they are almost useless) From my experience better model like Claude or o3 can do things that others simply cannot. At some complexity they start going circles making wrong decisions, forgetting things that are still in context window. But the thing is those complex tasks are usually the most interesting and important.
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
My worry about this approach is: there is a reasonably popular saying that writing code is hard but debugging it is twice as hard (at least), which I think is an accurate description. LLMs will greatly increase code production, will they also increase debuggability to match?
LLMs don't just make it easy to accumulate code - they make it easy to throw code away and start again . This already enables taking a different approach to debuggability - if there's a bug and it can't be trivially solved, trash that bit of the code and write it again . It may not be broadly viable just yet, but it will be if the models keep getting cheaper and better. This is also implied in the idea of "vibe codin…
> if there's a bug and it can't be trivially solved, trash that bit of the code and write it again
When I was in undergrad, I knew a few guys who approached every problem by pasting in snippets from Stack Overflow and tutorial sites until the code “worked”. Did not end well…
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#248This is the go community saying a computer will never best human go players. We already have examples of a model finding more performant sorts [0], given the right incentives and time, and the right system for optimizing (LLMs trained on “average code” probably aren’t it) the computer will best us at creating things for the computer. Is “vibe coding” real today? Not in my experience, with even Claude code. My hand ha…
> This is the go community saying a computer will never best human go players. I don’t see this. Board games are fundamentally different from software development problems. The latter have imperfect information, unknown requirements and constraints, fuzzy success criteria, and more.
Which means that as long as you can specify the requirements, constraints, and success criteria you can automate the coding part.
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
The growth of demand for software development is absurd and heavily skews people's expectations. It won't last forever.
>" It won't last forever." And who cares if it is true? So far programming is one of very few professions when person can set themselves for life in a relatively short period of time. When / if it is gone there will be something else. I have few friends who'd switched to be a handyman. They are doing great from what I see.
That very much depends on where you live.
Also, on what you're optimizing for. If, like many, you're looking for a job that makes sense, for instance (e.g. working to develop technologies or research that you think can change the world for the better), you're probably never going to strike that particular gold.
Re: “Vibe Coding” vs. Reality
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is the go community saying a computer will never best human go players. I don’t see this. Board games are fundamentally different from software development problems. The latter have imperfect information, unknown requirements and constraints, fuzzy success criteria, and more.
Which means that as long as you can specify the requirements, constraints, and success criteria you can automate the coding part.
Sure, but writing those is just coding in a fuzzier and more verbose language.